It's TV on the Internet

Online Patterns: The Future

As I referenced in a recent post, I'm not the only one who sees online patterns as the future. And for good reason. When executed correctly online patterns are a win-win for both the designer and the quilter. Publishing patterns online reduces the time and cost to market for the designer, making it easier to get their patterns out to the public. And of course it's instant gratification for the shopper.

QNN has had a pattern shop for over a year now. We've learned a lot the hard way and it's time for a laying on of hands, a top-to-bottom analysis and revamp. I'm asking for help from those of you who've been involved.

My proposed changes to the program are:

1. We provide copy to be included in each pattern that makes it very clear in that the designer is responsible for the content
2. We consider providing a rating/feedback system on QNN
3. QNN develops a promotion plan for the pattern shop to include a monthly photo of a quilt in our newsletter, monthly selections from the shop to be shown in the video stream, and a more prominent display of patterns for sale on our site.
4. We dispense with going through a graphics designer. We require the designer to provide:
   • The pdf of the pattern
   • Photos of the project per our specs (a full photo and a close-up)
   • A pdf of the materials page or one or two instructional pages as they deem appropriate
   • A signed statement that they have had the pattern tested by quilters of an appropriate skill level
   • They have included a blurb (we supply the wording) to direct all questions to the designer

I have sent a letter to each of the designers currently in our program and invite them to join in helping QNN make this a great program. To comment, simply click on the word "comment" right below this post.

QNNtv: Killer App

I’m not going to be coy here: QNNtv is the killer app in this industry. It’s obvious. Showing people how to make things and giving them easy access to the tools to do so is powerful.

Never before have we been able to couple how-to with immediate access to the products seen. previously crafting shows have aired on PBS and HGTV. Both channels severely limit product placement, never mind mention of a product by name. How in the world does this serve viewers? And for that matter sponsors? Of course, it has been their only option.

Until QNNtv. All day every day everywhere in the world, quilters can watch shows from our library of over 1,000 shows previously aired on traditional television and shows made for QNNtv. We show viewers how to make something by showing them how and direct them to the tools and supplies they need to get creating--all just a click away.

Our model of aggregating a special interest group--including quilters and everyone in the industry-giving them the tools and platform in which to meet and communicate, then ricocheting them in a sticky special-interest web-within-the-web is certainly revolutionary. It's killer!

Free + Premium = Freemium Model

I picked up a copy of Business 2.0 at Barnes & Noble recently. It was such an insightful read I went online to subscribe and found a timely article by Katherine Heires. Why it Pays to Give Away the Store.

As publishers of streaming video--especially to a rather non-tech audience such as ours--it made perfect sense to give the QNNtv streaming programming away when the site launched.

But there is no free lunch. And taking the helm at QNNtv it's my job to come up with a revenue model.

As Katherine reports, a "freemium" business strategy attracts quick customer adoption--this has been the case with QNNtv--and then offers premium services that cover the cost of the free service.

This was exactly my experience when I started this blog about a month ago. Researching the candidates, I chose Typepad as my blogging platform. After a quick look at the free option, I was quickly upsold to a paid service to get the specific features I wanted. An easy upsell. Hum...

The single most requested wish we hear from QNNtv viewers and industry clients (both are our customers) is for video-on-demand. Viewers want to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. And businesses want quilters to be able to click and watch their videos showcasing their products. Aha! Upsell!

Katherine's article led me to Fred Wilson's blog post "My Favorite Business Model" in which he wrote

Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.

Dharmesh Shah drew a further distinction in his blog post Startup Pricing Models: Free Forever, Freemium and Freedom to Pay.

Freedom To Pay:  This is the classic “customers pay for value” model.  I’m turning this around a wee bit and suggesting that with this model, customers have the freedom to pay.  Why, you may ask, am I positioning paying money as a benefit to customers?  Don’t customers want free?  The answer is, not always.  By giving customers an opportunity to pay, you are also giving them the freedom to expect some value from you.  Though customer expectations can (and do) exist for “free forever” products, it’s rarely the same as that for a paid product.    If you doubt this, try extracting a meaningful “service level agreement” (or for that matter, any agreement) out of a company giving you software for free.  In the cases I’ve seen, the companies are expecting something from you (like waiving their liability) and not the other way around.

It is interesting to observe how quickly the word "freemium," coined by Jarid Ludkin when he read Fred's article, has quickly made its way into our vocabulary--at least on the internet. Barry Graubart published a interesting graph depicting the spread of the newly-created word "freemium" on his blog.

We're launching our new membership with our regular (current) stream remaining free, and VOD as the paid for premium, in March. I'll report back on how our model freemium works for us.

Instant Gratification Patterns: Online Shopping

The crafting industry is full of fabulous products, but it's the designers who create projects and write and publish the accompanying how-to instructions in books, magazines and patterns that keep the demand for those products hopping. For designers, the most direct route to bring their project instructions to market, and the one offering the greatest control and potential profitability, is developing and marketing a line of patterns.

Taking this route, the designer maintains control over the content of her patterns, and the timetable from inspiration to market can be as little as a few weeks versus months for magazine articles and years for books.

Until now the pattern designer, four or six patterns in hand along with the subsequent investment in printing, made the rounds of quilt shops, slowly making a foothold in one shop at a time. Setting up booths at quilt shows, purchasing ads in magazines, and creating a web site with e-commerce capabilities would then follow. then there's manning the phone and web site to send out printed patterns onesies and sixsies at a time... Not much time left for developing product.

Enter the Internet and the ubiquity of the color ink jet printer.

Here's the scenario:

The designer has created the pattern in an electronic file. She either

a) pays a printer to print them, then warehouse them, and ships as orders come in.

Or

b) she prints patterns from the file on her computer on demand.

In both cases shipping and fulfillment are involved. Why not eliminate the printing and shipping steps by connecting the dots directly between the electronic file and the customer's color printer? Talking about instant gratification!

At QNNtv we have been offering a limited selection of instant gratification patterns for over a year. (I like that name, "Instant Gratification Patterns" it is!) We have learned what works and what doesn't work and are planning a re-launch of the program. The major lesson is that we need to educate our viewers about them: what they are, how to download them, etc. and do it visually. It's on my list for an upcoming studio taping session.

As Beth Mauro wrote in her article on this subject, Pay-Per-Project Online, for the crafts trade magazine CNA, shortening the time line between new product introduction and the availability (and easy access to) how-to project instructions creates a win-win-win for crafters, product manufacturers, and designers. An industry like quilting and crafting revolves around fresh projects that spark a crafter into saying, "I'm going to make that!" Giving him or her the tools to do so--quickly--is the most direct route to a successful finished project and a beaming "I made this!" That's what it's all about!

P.S. Now let's couple those instantly printable patterns with video-on-demand showing how-to make the project--now that's magic!

The QNNtv Vision

Everyone wants to be the go-to site for their industry or special interest group. Not to mention tops in a Google search. That’s all fine and good, but my argument is that we better serve ourselves when we serve our entire industry. As the industry goes so go the individual businesses within it.

Streaming how-to content 24/7, QNN has postitioned itself to educate sewers to an extent never before imaginable. We teach crafting the world over. (30% of our viewership is outside the U.S.) With hundreds of hours of original programming and season after season of made-for TV programming, our library is vast. With this much content we easily live up to our mission: We enable creativity.

As the video how-to hub, QNNtv realizes the promise of the Internet. By showing viewers how and giving them access to information, tools and supplies, we serve our customers well: both our viewers and the industry. We become a sticky Web-within-the-Web. That places individual businesses in the industry into a community that stands tall in the staggering enormity of the world wide web. A quilters' web!